uffish
grumpy, ill-tempered
Adjective
- grumpy, ill-tempered
- And, as in uffish thought he stood, / The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, / Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, / And burbled as it came! - 1872, Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky (poem in Through the Looking-Glass)
- The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow. - 1874–1876 (date written), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Fit the Fit the Fourth. The Hunting.”, in The Hunting of the Snark […], London:...
- Its great Cham was Wells, whose highly readable prose flowed easily between the line-drawings of behemoths in the coal swamps and Neanderthal man looking uffish. - 1956, Lawrence Johnstone Burpee, Canadian geographical...
Origin
Coined by British author and scholar Lewis Carroll. From its sound; Carroll explained the word as "a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish."